Composting 101

Lately, people have shown an interest in composting. So thought I'd share my experience with this. We have been composting for 6 years (and I was doing it long before that as well).

Composting is a fantastic way to keep our waste out of landfills. And you can turn that waste into something good. Black gold is the goal! Compost is wonderful for your garden and lawn...there's simply no better fertilizer.

You can get started today. If you have zero money to spend and want to start today, get a shovel and go out to your yard. Dig a hole (about a foot deep) in a sunny location and start tossing in your left overs (NO ANIMAL products!). Cover the hole with a trash can lid. It will take a while for this compost to develop because the earth will actually keep the contents fairly cool. But, over time, you'll develop a nice compost heap! (This is what I did when I lived in the little cabin by Pine Lake).

For about $5-$10 you can make your own compost bin. Get yourself a big black plastic trash bin with a lid that fits tightly. Home Depot, Lowes, Walmart, Big Lots, all sell them. Try to find one without handles that stick out. Drill holes in the bin (along the sides and in the bottom). The holes could be about the size of a dime. Throw some dirt in the bottom (an old, dead houseplant is perfect for starting your compost bin). But you don't even need to do that. Just start tossing in your kitchen waste...again, though, leave out any animal products (no meat, cheese, dairy)...just veggies/fruits, paper towels, used tea bags and coffee grounds...you can also put in yard waste, like grass clippings, fallen leaves...and you can recycle old mail (just shred it first!) and newspaper. You want to have a nice mix of browns and greens. Keep the compost moist (but not soaking wet!) and turn it often. Just put the lid on tight, tip the bin over and roll it around a few times...

Keep it fairly close to the house so you won't have an excuse not to use it. If you keep out the animal products, you won't have any problem with smell. Also, keep it in a sunny location because the heat will help everything decompose faster.

Keep a tiny compost bin in the kitchen to collect your scraps. Just get a small pail with a lid and keep it under the sink. You fill it up and empty it every other day or so.

Pretty soon you'll have a nice stash of black gold for your garden!

Camping...a weekend retreat

I'm going camping this weekend. I haven't been camping in almost 4 years. I used to go camping 4-5 times a year every year.

I started hiking about 20 years ago. I was 26 and recovering from being raped. Somehow, solo day hiking became my therapy. I lived only a few hours away from the Appalachian trail...I could drive to it in a matter of hours and hike all day. It was a solace to me. I look back on those days and marvel that something didn't happen to me (I've probably watched too many I Survived episodes). Back then, I said, rapists and murderers don't go hiking. So I would go hiking a couple times a week. Pack up a daypack with water, trail map, extra socks, a little first aid/emergency kit, and a couple of snacks...and I'd set off on a fresh new morning...even the drive to the mountains was good. Listening to music and being blessedly alone was bliss.

Then I started camping. I became addicted to the smells and feel of camping. I loved creating my own little home in the woods. I love waking up in a tent...feeling snug and secure and smelling the fresh air...feeling the early morning dew when I creep out of my tent to make coffee on the camp stove.

So a good friend is having a birthday on Friday and she wanted to go camping and I said that I would love to go. We asked my partner if she wanted to go...she laughed and called us "suckas!" and declined (we saw that coming a mile away as she hates camping).

Red River Gorge is our destination. It's just for a night. We leave early Saturday morning and will return on Sunday afternoon.

I got out my camp stuff last night. My trusty REI tent is still in great shape. It's a small one person tent and can be put up in less than 5 minutes. Got down my rubbermaid container that holds all my miscellaneous camping gear: propane, camp stove, camp pots/pans, camp dishes & utensils, rope, tarp, air mattress, pump, and even a solar shower (not that we'll need that since most campgrounds have hot showers now).

We'll do a full moon ritual while we are there...so I plan to take a few things for that...a small drum for raising energy (something else that I haven't done for a long time, drumming!), some incense, and some colored jar candles (re: safe...don't want to start any forest fires!). Another thing I've missed....from ritual...calling in the elements/elementals. We've planned a different kind of ritual...yet one more thing neither of us have done for a while and what my friend said would be a breath of fresh air (indeed!). We are going to work with two dieties for this ritual: Modron and Gwyn Ap Nudd. Instead of scrying, I'm going to take my cards...the animal and plant oracle.

Should be a lovely, restorative retreat. I'll post pix when I return!

One Magic Square...

Yesterday, I installed a 4'x4' raised bed...using the principles of square foot gardening. The idea is that the bed is then divided into 16 1'x1' squares and each square is then planted with a specific plant. Each square gets a specific number of plants/seeds, depending on the size of the plant (full grown). So, for example, while you can get 16 carrots in one square, you can only get 1 pepper plant in another one.

I planted a red pepper, a yellow pepper, shallots, radishes, carrots, squash, cantaloupe, watermelon, and potatoes.

I did a couple of things that were not recommended. First my box is a little less than four feet square. So each square is 11 1/2" x 11 1/2". Hopefully that is not a big deal. The other thing I did differently is that I did not install a vertical plane for the climbing plants to grow on. As they tend to take up space in the garden, the idea is that you need to install a kind of trellis for these plants to climb. I placed those plants around the edges of the garden so that they can trail off the sides of the box.

This is a an adventure for me. I have had container gardens before and, to be honest, never did very well with anything but houseplants and herbs. The only garden that I've had some measure of success with was the one that Cathy and I started a few years ago (in the house on Vogel). It did okay, despite the ridiculously hot/dry summer that was. This year, I'm making an effort to really grow a large portion of our summer produce. I am hoping that we can grow enough to offset our grocery bill. And, I'm guessing I'll learn something in the process and will be able to do a better job next year.

One thing I already knew...building the square foot garden was kind of late in the season...it would have been better to have it already in and to have started working in it in April even though it was still freezing here! That's the time to start working with the soil and even starting some seedlings (potatoes) with a window over the box.

I also need better soil to start with. I mean, we compost but don't nearly have as much as I would like to have. So we need to compost more and turn it faster. I also need to find a good source of soil for the raised beds and see about getting that soil delivered in bulk. I want to be organic and would prefer to use organic garden soil only but it is quite expensive and filling raised beds with it would mean spending hundreds of dollars.

The photo to the left shows the site before the installation. When we bought the house, there was a huge (90 feet) tree that was overgrown with ivy. It was also very close to the house. We were worried that a big wind would topple it into our house and/or the neighbor's house. We had it removed last summer. And the stump was ground down. We have been treating the soil but there's still a lot of wood beneath the surface.

The photo to the right features some of the supplies for the project. While I intend to make the garden organic, I just couldn't afford organic garden soil at $9 for 1.5cf. (We needed 16cf of soil). So I settled for premium topsoil and a big bag of garden soil. I also got a half bale of hay. And, of course, planned to ammend with our homemade compost and other natural goodness (worm castings, bonemeal, etc.).

I also bought some wood to construct the box. The wood is untreated cedar. We got 4 1x6x8 pieces and had the folks at Home Depot cut the wood in half so that we ended up with 8 1x6x4 pieces. Cathy screwed two pieces together to give us 4 2x6x4 pieces. While she was doing that I found 24 bricks (leftovers from our reclaimed brick paver patio project) and laid them out into a 4x4 square.

Then I began pulling up all the weeds and grass inside the project area. I also tried to pull out any big chunks of old tree and then used a hand tiller to till up the soil. Once Cathy had finished the box...and I had leveled the bricks, we laid the box on the bricks and then put down a layer of hay/straw. This will help to keep the soil aerated, and since it is organice, it will compost down throughout the season.

Next, I filled the box with the bags of topsoil. Then we dumped the contents of our rolling composter into the raised bed. I used my rake to mix the soil and compost before adding the garden soil. Cathy added a some worm castings as well.

I used my trusty rake to mix everything well (being careful not to disturb the hay layer on the bottom). And then began to create my grid.

As I said above, my raised bed is actually a tad smaller than 4x4. Next time I make one, I'll account for the wood when I measure, so rather than have the wood cut to exactly 4' in length, I'll have it cut to 4'2" so that when the box is put together, the inside space will measure out at 4x4 even. So my grid has 16 squares that measure 11 1/2" each.

Instead of using lathing to lay out my grid, I decided to use twine and tie the grid off. I didn't want to take up any more space than I needed to (which, I felt like the lathing would do that). You can see the squares in the photo to the right. Those squares looked tiny to me. As I was creating the grid, I thought, how in the world is this tiny little raised bed going to grown all that food. I guess I just have to trust that Mel Batholomew knows what he's talking about.

There were some veggies that I couldn't pick up to transplant into the garden and had to settle for seeds. I think there's still time for them to sprout and grow fairly well. There are 3 squares with seeds that I'm trying to germinate: radishes and carrots. Along one whole side of the garden are 4 squares with potatoes planted in them. When I picked out all the plants yesterday, I didn't notice that instead of grabbing 3 squashes, I actually picked up one squash and two cantaloupe. So, cantaloupe it is. I have one free square left and will pickup another squash plant this week to fill it.

Above, is the finished product...wish me luck that everything grows. I may add some fencing in the next couple of weeks if I think that the bunnies are going to attack!

Love of the Earth...Gardens, Plants, & Seeds

The rain garden is looking fantastic! I added a couple of St. John's wort plants a couple of weeks ago and they are beginning to bloom. The black-eyed Susan is going crazy! There are mushrooms everywhere because it's been so rainy and humid. I love it...I think the birds and other little animals do as well...

My SIP tomato garden seems to be doing fairly well too. Though it is probably too soon to tell...at least I think that the water reservoir is doing the job of keeping the plants hydrated. I bought some worm castings from Whole Foods last weekend and have begun to add it to the planters.

A couple of weeks ago, I ordered some seeds for my herb garden. They haven't arrived yet and I'm beginning to worry that I won't have enough time for them to sprout and get rooted before the end of summer arrives. One plant that I'd really like to get rooted and going is agrimony. But, in reading about the seeds, it looks like I'm going to have to pop them into the freezer for 4-6 weeks first. Summer will be coming to a close by then! Though, I have read that cold stratification is not necessary. May have to concentrate on getting the seedlings going and then transplant into a container that can be easily moved inside for the winter and planted outside in the spring.

Tomorrow, my partner and I are going to tackle the back of our yard. It's covered in weeds and old mulch. We want to clear it out and start new but it will probably be fall before it's ready for planting. We have a stack of newspaper and are going to pick up a bale of pine straw. This is a great organic way to prep an area that is very weedy. The idea is to lay out the newspaper, wet it down, then cover with mulch. This method not only inhibits weed growth but kills back all the ground cover that's currently there. In the fall we will add some ornamental grasses.

It has been raining most of the week and is threatening to come as I type this. I'm feeling the need to get outside and hold ritual. It has been awhile since I've stood in circle and I am missing it. The mosquitoes are out in force though, soooo...doing ritual inside is sounding very appealing. Maybe I'll set up a mosquito free zone like I used to do when I lived by Pine Lake in Georgia. (I had such a lovely outdoor ritual space there by my little yellow cabin). Must get outside soon...

How about a little SIP?

Today I'm making my first SIP...subirrigation planter. This is the big movement with urban gardeners. Why? Because these little gardens can grow enough produce to feed a family of 5 with very little money and space.

I'm choosing the SIP method this year because we have had no luck growing tomatoes since we moved to this house. We have a lovely backyard but the only area in our back yard that gets full sun is on the old cracked driveway. Eventually we are going to have that driveway broken up and taken away (we already found a cement recycling center!) but that's not going to happen this year so I had to think of a better way to garden.

The problem with conventional pots is that they have drainage holes in the bottom and you must top water. Not only is this a wasteful use of water but it's never ending. We had to water the container garden every day last summer just to keep the tomatoes from dying in the intense heat. All that watering leads to washing away any nutrition in the soil and kept the roots too wet. Bottom end rot was a huge problem.

Sub-irrigation planters should alieviate those problems. The magic of SIPs is due to capillary action. You water your plants from the bottom...the water seeps into the soil and the roots reach down to take a drink. This illustration shows how SIPs work.

I plan to create 4 SIPs for my vegetable garden this year. Two will hold tomatoes, one will hold herbs, and the other will start with lettuce now and then squash and cucumbers in a month or so.

I'm starting with four 36 gallon rubbermaid tote boxes. Home Depot had a big sale on these a few months ago, so I bought those four with this project in mind. (Cost = $16)

For my first SIP, I'm using 4 recycled plant containers from the nursery, 2 one gallon water jugs, and 4 plastic water bottles.

The first thing I am going to plant is lettuce. I have an organic mesculan mix. This is actually going to be an experiement because I don't know how lettuce is going to work in this plantar. Do the roots really grow that deeply for lettuce? Will I have to resort to watering from the top? We will find out. I am more confident with the tomato seedlings I'll be planting in a few weeks.

Earth + Water = Rain Garden

The spring after we moved into our house, we decided to create a rain garden. Rain gardens are a fantastic way to conserve water and create a lovely spot in your yard. We noticed that our little side yard had a natural swell...after the rain there would be a huge puddle of water. Instead of feeling like it was a problem, we were delighted...it would be the perfect spot for a rain garden.

Rain gardens help with water conservation because we channel the run off that would normally go right into the city storm drains. (This is how our water gets poisoned...lawn chemicals and fertilizers, oils and gas from our cars all contaminate our water ways).

The great thing about rain gardens, though, beyond the water conservation, is that they are beautiful and really take very little work to make them beautiful. We've had ours for three years and the only work we put into it is one spring day each year.

The photo above was taken during the first year of planting. We went to a local nursery and picked out as many native perennials as we could find. We added a piece of one of the trees that had been cut down on our street and topped it with a cement bird bath. We mulched with an organic material and then let it go.

Now, those black-eyed susans are taking over! We have dragon's blood, sedum, and cone flowers. This year we added some yellow lillies and some purple speedwell (just four plants!). Everything is coming up very well. I think we are going to add a rain barrel to this side of the yard. Sometimes, in high summer, it doesn't rain for weeks and I worry about the plants. With the rain barrel, I can help it along without worrying about buying water from the city.

The first step for us, this year, was to go to the home improvement center and pick up some mulch. We also picked up four plants (2 speedwells and 2 lillies). I'd like to add a few more cone flowers to round out that area. We'll pick them up this weekend.

Then, the hard work began. You'll see in the pix below, we had lots of weeds going crazy along the side of the house. And the rain garden, itself, was pretty weedy. We spent a good hour or so weeding and tilling the soil (we use a Mantiz roto-tiller, but just in a few spots).

If you look along the house wall, in the photo to the right, you'll see lots of weeds. Most of it was thistle. When we first moved into this house, there were three pine trees in that area. They were huge at some 70+ feet. We had to have them taken down. They were just too close to the house and we were worried about the foundation. Cathy is trying to kill the stumps very gradually. We don't want to bring in a stump grinder because we aren't sure that the roots aren't all grown into the foundation at this point. The garden is looking fairly raggedy in the photo above. Though we had done nothing to the garden when I took this picture, you can see that the perennials are doing very well and coming back really strong. This is a sunny garden and gets about 5 -6 hours a day.

After we pulled out all the weeds and tilled a couple of trouble spots, we scattered Hero's ashes. If you don't know, my beloved border collie/lab mix, Hero, passed March 28th. She was 16 years old and was the best dog. The rain garden is a place of joy and peace and sometimes Hero would walk around in it...so we decided to scatter the bulk of her ashes there. Hero's ashes are really great for the garden as a good kind of composting material (not to sound too matter of fact!). And then we spread some corn glutten (the yellow pellets) as a weed inhibitor.

After we watered in the corn glutten, we put down a layer of mulch. Oh, I should mention...I did rake out a lot of the old mulch. We want to keep the natural depression so that rain water collects in the garden. If I didn't rake out the old mulch before adding the new, it would elevate the garden too much (especially over the years).  I ended up with a nice wheelbarrow full of last year's mulch and good soil. We used it to fill in some of the holes that the big weeds left. We also spread it in the area where we took out a tree in the backyard (it was 80' and very close to the house and pretty much dead). So then, as a last step, we added about 7 bags of good mulch.

To the right, you can see the end result of all our hard work! The weeds are gone from the the back wall. We've spread corn glutten there to inhibit their growth and, in the next few weekends, we'll spread newspaper over that area, water it well and then cover it with mulch. This will kill all the weeds and prepare the soil for us to plant native ornamental grasses this fall.

The rain garden will require no further maintainance this summer...other than the occasional drink of water from the rain barrel. The rain garden does not breed mosquitos...in fact, this is a great way to keep the mosquito population down. When the rains come, the garden fills up with water, mosquito mamas lay their eggs, and then, within a day or so, the garden dries out and dries up and kills the mosquito eggs/larvae...

If you are interested in creating your own rain garden, just google it. There are a lot of great websites out there that will give you a blueprint to creating your own little patch of peace and beauty.

New Moon, New Beginnings...

I guess it happens to all of us...at least once in a lifetime...you think you are on one path and then, suddenly, you find yourself on another.

Since January, I feel like I have lived through a lot of sadness and fear and stress. Going through that time showed me who my friends were...who really cared about me. It showed me where I give away my power and potential and why I do that. It showed me that we are, all of us, fragile and hanging on to this precious life by a simple thread. And that there's no time, when the time comes, to say all that you need to...to give all the love you have to give. It's been a heartbreaking illumination. One thing that I am absolutely sure about...it is time to free myself from limiting and destructive energies.

Next week, I travel to the Sea of Cortez. While there, I will spend some time at the shore...that in between place...a threshold...a place that holds promise. I will stand there and take out a little parchment paper coracle, one on which I've written about all the things and situations that have stuck to me through the years...things that I wish to let go of...situations that I wish to transform...and I'll place that little boat in the water and watch until it has sailed past the Ninth Wave and into the setting sun.

Today marks a time when I set out on a new path...the way is clear.